1640. Stuart Little (1999)

Starring: Michael J. Fox, Hugh Laurie, Geena Davis

Director: Rob Minkoff

Running Time: 84 mins

Stuart Little is an American film about a husband and wife who adopt a mouse as a son, however the family cat hatches a plan to get him out of the house.

These live-action/CGI family movies of the late 90s and early 2000s were almost always either awful or decent. Fortunately, Stuart Little doesn’t fall into the former category, thanks to its fun-loving sense of humour, strong performances and impressive visual effects, although it only just scrapes into the latter given its story’s lack of depth and originality.

Let’s start on the bright side, however, with the visuals. Occasionally, this genre can bring about some incredibly ugly and distracting CGI to accompany real-life characters, but I have to say that Stuart Little actually does a very good job of it. Holding up incredibly well nearly 20 years later, I was hugely impressed by the CGI in this film. We’ll gloss over the cat’s moving mouth, but Stuart Little himself looks very convincing alongside the human characters, something that I really didn’t expect to say.

Another positive from the film is the performances. In the lead role, Michael J. Fox retains his coolness even when playing a CGI mouse, whilst the likes of Hugh Laurie and Geena Davis, despite not having the most interesting of roles, manage to provide some good laughs and even the odd hint of nostalgic emotion, which was great to see.

What’s best about Stuart Little, however, is that it’s a nice film. A kids’ movie’s first objective should always be to provide a fun burst of entertainment for the little ones, and there’s no better way to do that than by making a nice film. So, it’s all very light-hearted, and the comedy is incredibly simple, yet pleasant to enjoy.

Of course, that all comes at the expense of one thing, the story. As nice and happy as the film is, I have to say that it’s not the most interesting. It’ll definitely entertain kids from start to finish, but as we know, there are far better kids’ movies in the world that adults can love too.

Stuart Little is a fairly generic affair, featuring all the generic tropes from these turn-of-the-century family movies. Yes, it’s pleasant and fun, but I never really felt too connected with Stuart or any of the other characters throughout this movie, meaning that I just didn’t have a reason to be properly invested in the story at play, and that’s why I’m giving this film a 6.7 overall.